T-Mobile Backs Ubuntu Smartphone

Canonical announced the newest member of the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group is T-Mobile USA. The group is a consortium of advisors to help guide the development of the Ubuntu smartphone and are widely considered to be among the first carriers to offer the Ubuntu smartphone to their customers.

Canonical, unlike Google with Android, won't allow T-Mobile, or any carrier, too much control over the operating system's look and feel. Ubuntu is striving to prevent the interface fragmentation that plagues Android.

Click to expand...

Considering it was T-Mobile that was responsible for the Android craze, I see this as a positive thing. I'd personally like my next smartphone to be an Ubuntu phone. Unless Ubuntu prevents you from installing software from repositories and what not.

Getting sick and tired of the methods of rooting Android devices, and locked bootloaders.

Speaking of their phone... it seems like the $32 million crowd funded unbuntu edge is going to fail on indegogo.

DF-1 said:

Speaking of their phone... it seems like the $32 million crowd funded unbuntu edge is going to fail on indegogo.

Click to expand...

Yup. They have 17 days left to raise $24 million. Not going to happen.

DF-1 said:

Speaking of their phone... it seems like the $32 million crowd funded unbuntu edge is going to fail on indegogo.

Click to expand...

Yea that's no surprise.

Ashbringer said:

Getting sick and tired of the methods of rooting Android devices, and locked bootloaders.

Click to expand...

On this point can anyone clarify why manufacturers do this to begin with? I mean, it's going to be cracked at some point anyways and it's not like having this stuff unlocked can do damage with the average consumer (~95% of people...that left over 5% being people that are intentionally messing with stuff)...so...what's the point other than being assholes? I mean, really. All rooting and unlocking does is cause a pain in the ass...doesn't actually stop or prevent anything, right?

Ashbringer said:

Yea that's no surprise.

Click to expand...

Probably not a surprise to Canonical, either. It was an PR stunt with a sliver of a chance of working. But gave their phone OS bit of attention and an association as 'cutting edge'.

JoeUser said:

On this point can anyone clarify why manufacturers do this to begin with? I mean, it's going to be cracked at some point anyways and it's not like having this stuff unlocked can do damage with the average consumer (~95% of people...that left over 5% being people that are intentionally messing with stuff)...so...what's the point other than being assholes? I mean, really. All rooting and unlocking does is cause a pain in the ass...doesn't actually stop or prevent anything, right?

Click to expand...

A lot of times, its the carriers that force the manufacturers.Other times, its the manufacturers themselves. I don't think there's one sole reason they do it, I would think a lot of it is to prevent warranty claims from idiots trying to flash roms incorrectly, etc.

helloha1 said:

A lot of times, its the carriers that force the manufacturers.Other times, its the manufacturers themselves. I don't think there's one sole reason they do it, I would think a lot of it is to prevent warranty claims from idiots trying to flash roms incorrectly, etc.

Click to expand...

Yep. A lot of the carriers are the cause. Certain models that appear on all carriers will be unlocked on some, locked on others.

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that rooted phones can get free tethering, something the carriers like to charge an extra $20/mo for. Even though it just eats up their cap anyways.

helloha1 said:

A lot of times, its the carriers that force the manufacturers.Other times, its the manufacturers themselves. I don't think there's one sole reason they do it, I would think a lot of it is to prevent warranty claims from idiots trying to flash roms incorrectly, etc.

Click to expand...

If anyone ever preforms a bad flash, it's due to a dangerous method to root a phone. One example is the G1 phone, the first Android phone. You have to flash the radio, hboot, and other things to be able to fully flash a rom. Screw this up and you brick the phone with little chance to recover. The Mytouch4G Slide requires a wire trick which grounds out a circuit to the sim card. Otherwise you can't load a rom with a kernel, cause it's locked.

It's entirely due to these security lock outs that cause these problems. Even if you had a bad flash done to your phone, chances are it's 100% recoverable. So long as you can get into recovery, the phone can be recovered. It's the methods that are needed to root and fully unlock a phone to be able to flash custom roms, that can brick a device.